Police beat

Westerville: Stumbling women stopped in store, arrested on warrants

Friday April 11, 2014 6:28 PM

Westerville police were called when two women -- ages 28 and 34 -- were seen stumbling through a department store in the first block of Huber Village Boulevard April 4. An employee said neither woman could walk or stand up straight, and both appeared intoxicated.

According to police reports, when officers arrived, they concluded that both women were high on "some type of substance," before both women admitted to smoking crack and shooting heroin the night before. They also said they had been awake for about three days.

One of the women had two warrants for soliciting through the Columbus Division of Police, and the other had a warrant for theft through the CDP.

Both women were arrested and a female officer was called to the scene for a search. No contraband was found on either suspect, but officers found a glass pipe with burnt crack residue on the window sill of the store where the two women had been sitting prior to their arrest.

Neither suspect admitted to owning the pipe and each blamed the other. Because it could not be determined which suspect placed the pipe there, officers said they would both be charged for it.

The women were transported to Franklin County jail, where they were slated in on one count of drug paraphernalia along with their warrants.

In other recent incident reports from the Westerville Division of Police:

• On the afternoon of April 5, a woman reported to police that an unknown suspect broke out the driver's side rear window of her vehicle and stole her wallet and contents while she took a walk at the Westerville Community Center, 325 N. Cleveland Ave.

The woman's driver's license, credit card, checkbook and $6 in cash were stolen. An employee at the Maxtown Road Home Depot reported a customer turned in the woman's wallet the same afternoon. Only the checkbook remained.

• A woman called police to report a rain barrel stolen from her residence in the 300 block of Seneca Avenue March 31.

• On March 31, an employee reported that the rear overhead loading dock door of a business in the 700 block of Green Crest Drive was damaged with numerous dents sometime during the previous weekend.

According to the police report, there was no evidence of attempted forced entry, and there are no suspects.

• After walking out of a retail store in the 100 block of Polaris Parkway April 4 with $63 in Magic the Gathering trading cards, a 32-year-old man was arrested and charged with theft and taken to the Delaware County jail.

The man was with an 18-year-old female, whose vehicle he used to drive away after the theft. The woman convinced him to return to the store, where he was arrested, reports said.